> Having the UA be able to save the fonts will be an interesting idea.
Note that Safari 3.1 already implements this:
http://webkit.org/blog/148/web-inspector-update/
> Doing so would have some legal implications for the UA to have access
> to the font EULA so the font software (yes, fonts are classified as software!)
> to be installed. We should also expose "click" to purchase capabilities to
> allow people to be honest if the font is a commercial font.
I think this is only practical if the license data within fonts accurately reflects the EULA that applies to those fonts. When Microsoft ships Office, are the fonts that ship with it covered by a Microsoft EULA? A font vendor EULA?
Consider a simple example. Mac Office 2004 ships with a Monotype font "Century Schoolbook". The license records in the name table of the font indicate that a Monotype license applies, not a Microsoft license. Digging around for the license URL, I found Monotype standard EULA:
http://www.fonts.com/Legal/MI-EULA.htm
Section 12 specifically prohibits commercial use of the font embedded in a document without an additional license. Yet the embedding bits of the font are set to print/preview (fsType field of the OS/2 table), meaning that Microsoft EOT tools would happily produce an EOT font from this font even though it would violate the terms of the EULA for commerical use.
And what exactly is the font EULA that applies to fonts shipped with OS's? Apple ships Mac OS X with a full set of beautifully designed fonts, but it's difficult to determine what license applies to them, there's nothing specific about them in the general OS license. I'm sure it must fall under some "third-party software" clause but this doesn't really help answer directly "what's the license that applies to this font?"
User agents could ship with features that enabled the font license to be viewed but it wouldn't really mean much unless software vendors that ship fonts make a more concerted effort to document the licensing terms that apply to the fonts that they ship.
Regards,
John Daggett
Mozilla Japan